Our Plans { 2014-2015 Term 1 }

Honestly, this has been a tough year to plan! Maybe that is because I had to plan for an eighth grader!(Oh, this is tough on a mama's heart!)

I'm listing just our first term books. Most of these will be used the whole year though. I'll have a new post at each new term with additional books we will be adding each term.

Our education philosophy is inspired by the Charlotte Mason philosophy of education and follows our Catholic faith.

All of our Morning Basket plans are listed here. Those are not included below. 


This year I will have a 10 years old (5th grade) and a 13 years old (8th grade).

For math we will continue using Math-U-See and Life of Fred. LOF is more for review and fun math reading.

For geography we are using the Map Skills Series and Visits to North America. 

Tyler (the 5th grader) will be reading for Ancient history The Cat of Bubastes: A Tale of Ancient Egypt by G.H. Henty and a few Usborne books: Time Traveler, Ancient Egypt, and Ancient World. For American History he will read (I have two books picked out for him to choose from, which he still needs to do) either Four Great Americans or America First 100 Stories from Our History by Lawton B. Evans.

Tyler, for science will be reading The Kid's Book of Weather Forecasting, The Story Book of Science and Health 5 from Seton. He will also be conducting his own experiments from Usborne 100 Science Experiments.

For religion, Tyler will be reading from the following: Faith and Life 5, The Book of Saints and Heroes by Andrew Lang (I'm not sure if this is the one I have, mine looks different), A Life of Our Lord for Children by Hunt, Saint Therese of Lisieux: The Way of Love by Glavich, and Old Testament stories from a Children's Bible.

In Language Arts, Tyler will be using IEW Fix It! Book 1 The Nose Tree and Intermediate Language Lessons. In writing Tyler will be working on written narrations in addition to oral narrations. And reading to mom using The Book of Gratitude (Faith and Freedom Reader) from Seton. (I'm not 100% on LA yet, so there may be some changes.)

Caleb (the 8th grader) will be reading for Ancient history Augustus Caeser's World by Foster, Hittite Warrior by Williamson, and the Usborne Ancient World book. For American History he will be reading American Gun: A History of the US in Ten Firearms by Kyle.

Caleb, for science, will be doing Memoria Press Book of Trees for Botany science.

For religion, Caleb will be reading Witness to the Faith from Seton (for Church history), Faith and Life 8 (for Catechism), Ablaze, Stories of Daring Teen Saints, The Virtue Tree Program written by Sandra Grant from CHC, and Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: Book of Genesis.

Caleb's big focus this year is Language Arts (some last minute instruction to have him ready for high school). There is a lot to cover, but I have a good plan in place and hope it all works out!
IEW Fix It! Robin Hood Book 2
Memoria Press Classical Composition I Fable Stage (see Afterthoughts on how to CM this program)
Literature reading The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien
Finish up Keyboarding Skill
Our Mother Tongue for grammar
Increase to two written narrations a week and daily oral narrations.

In math we will add in some Key To Series in addition to MUS.

Electives for Caleb include: The Fallacy Detective (Logic) and Roots of English (the closest I will get to teaching this boy Latin).

Zebra, who is unknown years old and whatever grade he chooses will be studying anything that moves this term! He is one curious cat!

Please share your plans for the upcoming year in the comments or link to your blog post in the comments!